PlanetsCentral

Those results do not surprise me: the average is pi*165²/8000 = 10.7 planets. 12-16 is outside that range and takes a lot of luck to obtain. The question is how far we can tighten the limit. 9-12 is even more fair than 10-15.

I dont know how much CPU resources your host has. The "10-15" setting removes very bad starting condition. That is enough for me.

Also please consider changing HomeworldsRadius to at least 486 (I recommend 500 but it takes around 3 min to generate a map on my laptop).

Look at the typical result for HomeworldsRadius = 450

Some races have to fight early. Other races can colonize a large territory without confrontaion.

With HomeworldsRadius = 500 the result is much better.